PS2 - Twisted Metal Review

Deep within the mind and buried in the soul, lies madness in us all. A descent into darkness reveals the insanity where an unsettling silence looms on the brink of total anarchy. And there's only one way out...Twisted Metal:Black OnlineTM.

Designed and developed by the original Twisted MetalTM team, Incog Inc Entertainment, the team often credited with creating and perfecting the car combat genre. Twisted Metal:Black OnlineTM gives players the opportunity to battle against each other online in the ultimate test of their car combat skills.

Capitalising on 2, Twisted Metal: Black OnlineTM?the technological prowess of the PlayStation delivers rich textures, superior graphics, and outstanding special effects, bringing the team's shocking and imaginative vision to life. Twisted Metal: Black OnlineTM challenges the mind with skill while engaging the heart with terror. Although destruction is at the game's core, mental and physical agility are required for the most creative kills. Take to the wheel of incredible jacked-up vehicles and command the most insane set of rigged-up weapons yet. Rip through foreboding battlegrounds and nightmarish landscapes in a wickedly dark world that is sure to bring out the madness in us all.

After a successful promotion in the US last year (2002), the eternally demented car combat Twisted 2 owners?MetalTM series, will be available to play online with other PlayStation with Network Gaming access across Pan-European territories. Twisted Metal: Black OnlineTM is an ideal introduction to online gaming on a console as it offers immediatly accessible gameplay and instant gratification but this time against far more intelligent and challenging opposition.

Game synopsis:

Enter an online arena of frenzied car combat across twenty huge 3D battle zones with turbo-charged vehicles, awesome weaponry, grisly violence and macabre mayhem for those of us who know no fear!

Characters and Story:

Twisted Metal: Black OnlineTM does not include a storyline. The game is car combat in it's purest form. However the gameplay does not differ from the original Twisted Metal: BlackTM version. The story was about a mysterious man named Calypso that breaks out a group of deranged and cursed individuals from an insane asylum so they can compete in his car combat tournament. All of the characters have a ghastly history as to why they're in the asylum and many of their horrific lives intertwine in some fashion or another. Basically, all the characters have gone through hell and have scores to settle.

• 8 game modes including Death Match, Last Man Standing, Fox Hunt and Collector

• 20 levels – all levels featured in the current Twisted Metal: BlackTM product.

• All the playable vehicles (15) from the multiplayer modes in Twisted Metal: BlackTM.

• Up to 8 players online.

• Game modifiers available in ALL game modes e.g. single weapon, single vehicle, power relics, unlimited weapons, handicap and friendly fire.

• Twisted Metal: Black OnlineTM will use same set of pickups that exist in the original game. Pickup regeneration rates will be based on number of players currently playing in a level. As more players connect to a game, the pick-ups will regenerate at a faster rate.

• All of the vehicles will be available and can be selected by the player if the game mode allows. No vehicles can be locked out.

• The maximum number of specials that any vehicle can stockpile is 5.

• More than one player may select the same vehicle.

• Pedestrian and fodder vehicles in the levels are not supported.

• Each level has unique environmental interactive objects that will have to be synchronised. Some objects have been removed from the level due to synchronisation issues